Never a Replica
by Haikoui
Summary: She was never meant to be a replacement. D/A oneshot, tiny bit of Arthur/Eames. Fluff near the end.


**Summary: **She was never meant to be a replacement. D/A oneshot, tiny bit of Arthur/Eames. Fluff near the end.

* * *

He remembered the day he first saw her, when Miles first introduced his young, bright (and quite frankly, beautiful) student. He remembered assigning the task of creating a maze which he couldn't solve within a minute. The third time was the charm, and she became his architect. His builder.

She was enthralled by him. He could tell. Against his will, she entered his dreams, saw _her_, but instead stood behind his back, unwavering. She was the only one on the team who seemed to be able to understand. For some reason, this never made sense to him (about how she managed to just _understand_), because Arthur was always the one he stuck with in any mission. Maybe it was her imagination that allowed her to relate to him (after all, he used to be an architect himself). And slowly, without knowing, he slowly but surely became enthralled with her, as well.

A month after the Inception, he went back to Paris to visit Miles. Late at night, in a small French café, he spotted her with difficulty, her head on a textbook and her hand loosely gripping a pencil over a sketchbook. A steaming mug of coffee rested in front of her textbook. He nearly fainted at the sight of her, disheveled, dark circles under her eyes, hardly recognizable. He woke her up (she had almost knocked over her coffee after seeing him) and demanded to know what was wrong.

She, of course, stubbornly refused ("I'm fine!" she retorted) but after a long, furiously whispered argument, he reluctantly agreed that she was "Alright, just behind on schoolwork." And he made her let him stay at her place for his visit. Just in case.

Night after night, she was restless. She woke up gasping. He knew because he could hear her thrashing in her bed, calling out. He finally got fed up with her and her unrelenting attitude. "Let me _help_ you," he pleaded her one morning.

"I don't want you to see it." As always, she held up a barrier. This annoyed him to no end – _he _let his guard down with _her,_ so why couldn't it be true the other way around? After much convincing, the wall crumbled and that night, in her dream, he sat with her as she wept.

He never completely understood what was wrong until one night, in a dream where they laid on the grass under the stars, and she whispered, "Cobb?"

"Hm?"

"Why are you here?"

He turned on the grass to face her. "I'm visiting Miles."

She frowned, still staring at the sky. "And that takes two weeks, apparently."

"I – " he faltered, looking lost. Neither of them spoke for a while, with her on her back watching the sky and him regarding her, until he said, "Ariadne, I think you know why I'm here."

"Don't make it seem like you care," she said coldly.

"I want to know what's stopping you from getting _sleep_," he countered. "Of course I care. You – you _saved _me. Without you, I would probably still be stuck in limbo. At the very least, let me help you get some sleep."

She took in a trembling breath and twisted around to face him on the grass. "Cobb… I don't want… to be… to be…" Her hair fell into her eyes and she blew at it to force it away, but to no avail, and he gently tucked her hair behind her ear. Suddenly, she looked frightened. "Don't – "

"Why can't I?" he questioned her. "What's so wrong about it?"

"You can't toy around like this," she whispered, her eyes glazing over. "Arthur was never – "

"Don't bring Arthur into this." He gave her a hard look leaned on one of his elbows in front of her. "Arthur never had anything to do with this."

"He cared about me," she said sadly.

"And I don't?" he shot back fiercely. "Ariadne, I _do._ That's why I'm helping you." But she only glared at him in response. Finally, he whispered, "Ariadne…"

"I don't want to be a replacement, Cobb," she hissed.

Oh. _Oh._

"A replacement? For who?" he inquired, genuinely confused. "How could you _ever_ be a replacement?"

"For – for _her!"_ she cried, looking more and more agonized by the minute. "Mal! I don't want to be – we all know, all of us, that you just want someone to take her place – "

She was silenced by his lips on hers, one of his hands on the base of her neck and then other supporting them on the ground. She gave a noise from the back of her throat in surprise but he only pulled away and hugged her against him.

"Never. Never a replacement," he breathed. "Was this what was bothering you, this whole time? The idea of being a _replacement?"_

She took in a deep breath and nodded shakily against his chest. He chuckled and whispered against his hair, "Mal's gone. I've accepted that. A replacement is a copy. You know that. You're a builder, Ariadne, full of imagination. You would never be a copy of anything. You're _unique. _You would never be a copy – and no one could copy _you."_

She shifted in his embrace, clutching at his shirt. "Arthur… he always said…"

"I don't give a damn about what Arthur says," he said shortly. "Now, if it's about _age, _yes, it worries me because people will talk. That is my only concern because – I already have children. I've already had that experience whereas _you_ haven't. You need to be with someone who will be able to give you all that – "

She nudged her face up to glare at him. "Dominic Cobb, I don't need that. And why would I care if people talk?"

He smiled. "Love is love, right?" He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "So don't you ever think of yourself as a replacement."

The dream faded and as he helped her up from her bed, she asked, "When are you leaving?"

"In two days," he answered. "Eames is getting married."

"Where did you hear that?" she questioned incredulously.

"Arthur," he stated simply. "Apparently Eames didn't feel like making invitations."

She walked with him to her kitchen. As he sat down at her small table, and as she expertly cracked eggs into a sizzling pan, she said nonchalantly, "I always thought Eames liked… Arthur."

He shrugged. "Maybe. With Eames, it's hard to tell."

Minutes passed and she laid a plate of scrambled eggs and a leftover biscuit in front of him. "Who's watching your kids?"

"Miles," he replied. Her eyes bulged slightly and she said reproachfully, "You didn't tell me they were here!" Yet, her amusement was visible.

"Want to see them?" he asked her, smiling.

Her amusement vanished on the spot.

"Ariadne," he said firmly.

Her lips thinned and she shook her head.

"Oh, come on, we talked about this not even half an hour ago," he told her.

"_You_ may not consider me a replacement," she said, her brows furrowed. "_They _might. I don't want them to."

"If anything, Ari, they'll love you."

The corners of her lips twisted upward. "Really?"

"Just like I do," he assured her.

Two days later, with Phillipa and James in tow, both of them left for a plane to the United States, where Arthur had told them Eames would hold his wedding. A week after, with the children taken with her and Dominic Cobb insistent on her staying at his place, she checked out of her hotel and took up the guest bedroom. A month after that, Arthur visited with a drunk Eames ("Dahhhling, we all knew this would happen soon enough," he told her as she privately talked to him about her relationship with Cobb) and Eames told them he'd annulled his marriage. She was too demanding, he said. He liked the submissive kind more, and with that he gave a hard kiss to Arthur, who immediately pushed him away, flushing red, and said, "He's drunk."

"We know," Cobb said knowingly, speaking for both him and the woman by his side.

Three months after, they celebrated Phillipa's birthday. She wanted two gifts only. One from Arthur, whom she had taken a large liking to (the gift was a gorgeous dollhouse which she adored), and one from Cobb and Ariadne. They had given her gifts individually, of course (Cobb gave her a tricycle; Ariadne gave her a doll), but she stated very firmly, "I want Daddy and Ari to kiss!" With that, both adults turned tomato red as Eames roared with laughter and Arthur rolled his eyes. Phillipa and James took matters into their own hands; one took Ariadne's head and one took Cobb's and pushed them together. "Take a picture!" shrieked Phillipa, and Eames gleefully snapped photos.

"So," he said one night. "Are you a replacement?"

She was silent.

"Ariadne…?"

"Cobb, you know my answer," she said.

"Do I?"

She raised an eyebrow.

"I just want to hear you say it yourself," he said, taking hold of her hands.

"No," she answered.

"You're not going to say it?" he said, offended.

She laughed. "That's not what I meant. No, I'm not a replacement."

He smiled widely. "Good."

Builders – _architects –_ always created. Never copied, never replaced.


End file.
